As Nokia's cell phone business declined, it started filing patent lawsuits. Nokia was unafraid to sue giant competitors like RIM and Apple. The Finnish company's aggression was one of the key factors that ended the detente between tech companies who used to avoid patent spats for fear it would only lead to "mutually assured destruction."

Microsoft paid billions for a license to Nokia's patents, but the company has made explicit that Nokia still owns the patents. The genius of this move is that it allows Microsoft to double down on its patent war with Android. Microsoft boasts that the majority of Android phones sold worldwide have already paid for a license to Microsoft patents. By 2011, patent licensing revenue exceeded Microsoft's revenue from Windows Phone.

Now, Nokia can go after Android phone makers for royalties—even ones that have already paid Microsoft.

When pressed on the issue today, a Nokia spokesman confirmed that more patent licensing is indeed part of the plan.

"Once we no longer have our own mobile devices business, following the close of the (Microsoft) transaction, we would be able to explore licensing some of those technologies," a company spokesman told Reuters.

IP experts who spoke to Reuters said that Nokia's unusual decision to not sell the patents along with the business means that it has other plans for recouping value from those patents. While Nokia is not a "patent troll" because it will continue to have an operating business, it is effectively embracing a similar strategy. The combination of a powerful patent portfolio and no operating phone business to counter-sue will make Nokia a formidable opponent in court.

Somebody did some simple arithmetic and decided that Microsoft gains less from being able to force licenses to Nokia's patent pool than Nokia keeps from having that option.

Microsoft, fr'instance, has its pledge not to sue any open source software project that does not charge money for it (an obvious reason for not suing Google directly). Plus, they ALREADY have licenses with various Android competitors, likely for all MS IP that reads on the OS.

Nokia has extensive FRAND commitments plus one very interesting case where they're trying to block Google from using a Nokia patent because Nokia claims it's only FRAND when used as part of h.264, not in an effort to undercut h.264 by using it within VP8. If Google really wants complete control over a codec that would deny profitability to every other codec effort the same way that Android undercut WM (and with the expected marketshare & market power effects), they will have to pay bigtime to Nokia. While Microsoft would have to simply smile.

Therefore, again: the patents have very little value to Redmond but potentially are worth billions to any company not named “Microsoft.”

There may be other reasons why the author/originator of the patents wants to keep them, but the economic incentives look pretty sharp.

Now, Nokia can go after Android phone makers for royalties—even ones that have already paid Microsoft.

Not sure why this is news. Nokia is already suing HTC in court and two separate filings with the ITC to ban recent HTC phones, with such BS patents like "method for using services offered by a telecommunication network, a telecommunication system and a terminal for it", you know, Google play's ability to install software, or wow, software permissions. Other patents are perhaps more solid, dealing with cell radios.

Should probably be emphasized that one of the huge benefits of having the patents stay with Nokia while taking the phone business is it effectively eliminates the utility of the "defensive patent portfolios" that Google and Apple have amassed. MS, Google, and Apple stay out of each other's hair these days because any lawsuit will bring 20 countersuits, as everyone is infringing on everyone else's patent portfolio. Why MS went after phone makers instead of Google, etc.

Now that Nokia has no significant mobile products that infringe on someone else's patent portfolio, it's bombs away. Given that MS's license for Nokia's patents was probably a throw-in on the deal, they essentially get an attack dog out of the deal for free.

Now, Nokia can go after Android phone makers for royalties—even ones that have already paid Microsoft.

Not sure why this is news. Nokia is already suing HTC in court and two separate filings with the ITC to ban recent HTC phones, with such BS patents like "method for using services offered by a telecommunication network, a telecommunication system and a terminal for it", you know, Google play's ability to install software, or wow, software permissions. Other patents are perhaps more solid, dealing with cell radios.

Presumably because Microsoft indemnifies WP licensees from patent infringement claims and while HTC is an easy target, a patent war with Microsoft is a lot more dangerous - even ignoring how strange of a situation that would be with Nokia betting so heavily on WP.

Presumably because Microsoft indemnifies WP licensees from patent infringement claims and while HTC is an easy target, a patent war with Microsoft is a lot more dangerous - even ignoring how strange of a situation that would be with Nokia betting so heavily on WP.

I don't think MS could indemnify HTC's 8x over HTC's "violations" of Nokia's cell radio patents or their patent on how to assemble a portable electronic device in a compact way (yes, they have a patent on that).

Presumably because Microsoft indemnifies WP licensees from patent infringement claims and while HTC is an easy target, a patent war with Microsoft is a lot more dangerous - even ignoring how strange of a situation that would be with Nokia betting so heavily on WP.

I don't think MS could indemnify HTC's 8x over HTC's "violations" of Nokia's cell radio patents or their patent on how to assemble a portable electronic device in a compact way (yes, they have a patent on that).

Microsoft isn't going to sue android manufacturers for any of the patents that Nokia owns.

Android manufacturers are already licensing technology patents off of hundreds of different companies, and nokia/microsoft were always among them.

This is just the status quo resuming. The only difference is Nokia doesn't have to cross license anything.... except now Microsoft will be forced to cross license when they didn't previously, so there's really no change.

If the DoJ had sharper teeth, they might take a bite out of Microsoft's new proxy war plan.

This should remind people of MS arranging funding for SCO to go after Linux.

If you think it would be right to forcefully expropriate Nokia's IP, go ahead and make the case—but what they might likely do legally wouldn't get very far.

And if the better answer is for the US to buy and bury these Finnish nuclear weapons, I suspect a tough debate in Congress.

Finally, I can think of a firm in Mountain View that recently has thrown a few billions at patents that it has promised to retire unless necessary for defending Motorola's GameBox business. Those past purchases were never judged by anybody outside Google as having much value (a judgement that has yet to be disproved), but people such as yourself seem to think these Nokia (R) brand patents are much more like death rays.

If the DoJ had sharper teeth, they might take a bite out of Microsoft's new proxy war plan.

This should remind people of MS arranging funding for SCO to go after Linux.

If you think it would be right to forcefully expropriate Nokia's IP, go ahead and make the case—but what they might likely do legally wouldn't get very far.

And if the better answer is for the US to buy and bury these Finnish nuclear weapons, I suspect a tough debate in Congress.

Finally, I can think of a firm in Mountain View that recently has thrown a few billions at patents that it has promised to retire unless necessary for defending Motorola's GameBox business. Those past purchases were never judged by anybody outside Google as having much value (a judgement that has yet to be disproved), but people such as yourself seem to think these Nokia (R) brand patents are much more like death rays.

It would make sense to say MS must buy the patents as part of the deal if they want the phone business.

The way MS has set this up (as pointed out by others above) is they take away any need for Nokia to negotiate or cross-license patents, while protecting (only) themselves, and giving Nokia ample funding to ramp up their trolling.

Now, Nokia can go after Android phone makers for royalties—even ones that have already paid Microsoft.

Not sure why this is news. Nokia is already suing HTC in court and two separate filings with the ITC to ban recent HTC phones, with such BS patents like "method for using services offered by a telecommunication network, a telecommunication system and a terminal for it", you know, Google play's ability to install software, or wow, software permissions. Other patents are perhaps more solid, dealing with cell radios.

as i understand it, when you use wp os, ms pretty much indemnifies you for everything in the base os. unless you install a separate component that infringes, whoever wants to sue will have to attack ms directly. not an easy proposition though it can be done.

android has no such protection. the cost for free is that you open yourself up to these threats. and while i can't recall if ms ever filed suit (dont think they did), we see how effective it is by how many oem are paying ms for those patents.

MS, Google, and Apple stay out of each other's hair these days because any lawsuit will bring 20 countersuits, as everyone is infringing on everyone else's patent portfolio. Why MS went after phone makers instead of Google, etc.

Not exactly... (disclaimer, IANAL)

Google is extremely weak and yet unassailable when it comes to patents covering mobile phones, which is why Apple and Microsoft do not sue Google.

i.e. Google makes no product that infringes on MS's or Apple's mobile patents. It's the OEMs (Samsung et al) that make the product. And Google sells these OEMs nothing. Google only creates a bunch of code that's essentially owned by nobody. The infringing products are only created by Samsung etc. (of course, this changes now with the Moto X, but you get the idea).

Of course, when I say 'infringing' above, I just assume that today nobody can make a smartphone without infringing on somebody's portfolio(s).

Additionally, Google offers no indemnity to their OEMs. And that's the genius of their move. They are free to innovate at any pace, no matter whether they infringe or not, and they themselves don't face the consequences but their OEMs end up playing licensing fees to MS, and getting into all kinds of spats with Apple. Really quite an utterly brilliant tactic on Google's part here. And its also hard to blame Apple and MS for using the courts -- the pace of their innovation is always bound by the draconian patent laws that currently exist -- so obviously they will not concede this freedom to innovate without worrying about patents to Google, without a fight.

Eventually either the courts rule in Apple/MS's favor and Google has to start playing by the same rules, or the courts (or govt.) decide to make some sense out of these ridiculous patent laws -- but whichever of those two outcomes occurs will serve to level the playing field (i.e. either Google gets slowed and patent-encumbered, or Apple and MS get freed and patent-unencumbered). And Apple and MS will most likely keep going to court until they get one of those two outcomes.

As soon as I heard that MS was buying Nokia's whole mobile division while only licensing the patents I know that this was about.

This was about allowing Nokia to go full troll.

Without a mobile business, Nokia no longer has to worry about patent countersuits. They now are a Non-Practicing Entity, and can sue everyone without problems.

I hate this planet.

considering Nokia created these patents, i am perfectly fine with how they end up using it. these werent created for imaginary products. they werent created specifically for attack. Nokia is still a company in the mobility business building and designing infrastructure and tech that connects to it.

Calling them patent troll in both the article and comments seems odd to me considering Nokia pretty well builds the world's mobile technologies.

I wonder if in these patent wars some one will bring up the fact that Nokia is a Finnish company, why is all this patent stuff happening in the US?

Because, while the European patent systems are pretty bad, the American system is far worse. It's all about laws and jurisprudence, which favours patent trolling a lot more in America, so that's the arena where the patent wars are fought. Elements of note:

considering Nokia created these patents, i am perfectly fine with how they end up using it. these werent created for imaginary products. they werent created specifically for attack. Nokia is still a company in the mobility business building and designing infrastructure and tech that connects to it.

Calling them patent troll in both the article and comments seems odd to me considering Nokia pretty well builds the world's mobile technologies.

The way patents (sort of) work without trolling is for the manufacturers to cross-license patent portfolios so that each company can create their products and compete in the market.

MS' plan takes away the checks and balances from Nokia -- they stop producing any products so they no longer need to cooperate on patents and compete with products instead of lawyers.

considering Nokia created these patents, i am perfectly fine with how they end up using it. these werent created for imaginary products. they werent created specifically for attack. Nokia is still a company in the mobility business building and designing infrastructure and tech that connects to it.

Calling them patent troll in both the article and comments seems odd to me considering Nokia pretty well builds the world's mobile technologies.

The way patents (sort of) work without trolling is for the manufacturers to cross-license patent portfolios so that each company can create their products and compete in the market.

MS' plan takes away the checks and balances from Nokia -- they stop producing any products so they no longer need to cooperate on patents and compete with products instead of lawyers.

Even more, with this new strategy they become no different than lawyers investing in dead businesses to buy up the patents. Just as the outcome of these endeavors is never products but suing everyone in sight, so with the New Nokia. The contributor is absolutely right, this is a crooked and dirty deal by MS to drive up the cost of Android licenses. MS already has leverage over OEMs, if they make windows phones they pay less per device. Now they can have the added benefit of an attack dog forcing OEMs to play ball. If any anti-trust organization had a brain, they would step in and stop this. Pro Tip; the solution can compensate Nokia shareholders and make sure the patents are used fairly.

considering Nokia created these patents, i am perfectly fine with how they end up using it. these werent created for imaginary products. they werent created specifically for attack. Nokia is still a company in the mobility business building and designing infrastructure and tech that connects to it.

Calling them patent troll in both the article and comments seems odd to me considering Nokia pretty well builds the world's mobile technologies.

Nokia is for all practical purposes being sold to MS. What's being left behind is a shell with the same name that will be used to strong-arm OEMs.

Gotta love Elops effect on Nokia. Moving it to the crap that is WP and making it into a patent troll.

Too bad it happened to my preferred maker of mobile phones (up to N9 obviously, Lumias are bad). Would be nice if some decent companies could survive by just actually making and selling products instead of going troll competitors with random mildly said idiotic patents.

If the DoJ had sharper teeth, they might take a bite out of Microsoft's new proxy war plan.

This should remind people of MS arranging funding for SCO to go after Linux.

If you think it would be right to forcefully expropriate Nokia's IP, go ahead and make the case—but what they might likely do legally wouldn't get very far.

And if the better answer is for the US to buy and bury these Finnish nuclear weapons, I suspect a tough debate in Congress.

Finally, I can think of a firm in Mountain View that recently has thrown a few billions at patents that it has promised to retire unless necessary for defending Motorola's GameBox business. Those past purchases were never judged by anybody outside Google as having much value (a judgement that has yet to be disproved), but people such as yourself seem to think these Nokia (R) brand patents are much more like death rays.

It would make sense to say MS must buy the patents as part of the deal if they want the phone business.

The way MS has set this up (as pointed out by others above) is they take away any need for Nokia to negotiate or cross-license patents, while protecting (only) themselves, and giving Nokia ample funding to ramp up their trolling.

None of which is remotely illegal or anticompetitive (same with the role Microsoft played in the SCO mess you referred to) - how does forced bundling of the patents make any sense at all from a regulatory perspective? You might not like the outcome - and if Nokia 2.0 here is basically just a patent troll neither will I - but the only way out of this sort of mess is real patent reform.

I see it as anticompetitive to use your Windows OS monopoly profits to fund patent troll attacks on your competitors in the phone OS business, but I'm not a patent or antitrust lawyer.

The problem is that's not what they're doing - there's no contract that says Nokia has to troll android OEMs. That's probably what will happen (and MS is surely aware of that), but there's nothing to legally tie MS to what Nokia does.

I'm handing you these guns and explosives, plans for cracking the vault, a shiny new getaway car and driver.

But I'm not ORDERING you to rob that bank, no nope no way!

Bad analogy for multiple reasons. Not the least is that MS would still be doing nothing illegal or deserving of antitrust scrutinty if they did the trolling themself. Robbing a bank is somewhat less of a grey area. They're also not providing patents - they're buying a phone business.

If you bought someone's car and suspected they would use that money for something that was *not* illegal for that party (or even yourself!) but would benefit your business, are you guilty of anything?

None of which is remotely illegal or anticompetitive (same with the role Microsoft played in the SCO mess you referred to) - how does forced bundling of the patents make any sense at all from a regulatory perspective? You might not like the outcome - and if Nokia 2.0 here is basically just a patent troll neither will I - but the only way out of this sort of mess is real patent reform.

Let me tell you all the Finns who are reading this here (and I know you are out there). This really is your national day of mourning. The company, that once was your countries flagship, has become a bottom feeding scum. I am so sorry.

As soon as I heard that MS was buying Nokia's whole mobile division while only licensing the patents I know that this was about.

This was about allowing Nokia to go full troll.

Without a mobile business, Nokia no longer has to worry about patent countersuits. They now are a Non-Practicing Entity, and can sue everyone without problems.

I hate this planet.

considering Nokia created these patents, i am perfectly fine with how they end up using it. these werent created for imaginary products. they werent created specifically for attack. Nokia is still a company in the mobility business building and designing infrastructure and tech that connects to it.

Calling them patent troll in both the article and comments seems odd to me considering Nokia pretty well builds the world's mobile technologies.

Good to know I'm not the only one finding this article and most comments very bizarre. Calling Nokia the attacker and patent troll??? I'm like WTF is going on here.

None of which is remotely illegal or anticompetitive (same with the role Microsoft played in the SCO mess you referred to) - how does forced bundling of the patents make any sense at all from a regulatory perspective? You might not like the outcome - and if Nokia 2.0 here is basically just a patent troll neither will I - but the only way out of this sort of mess is real patent reform.

Collusion.

What part do you think is collusion? I can't imagine there's an agreement for Nokia to go on a trolling spree after the sale - Microsoft would be counting on them having no reason not to do it.

I wonder if in these patent wars some one will bring up the fact that Nokia is a Finnish company, why is all this patent stuff happening in the US?

Because patents don't work planet-wide; you have to file patents on the same thing in the EU, in the US, in China, in Taiwan and in Russia if you want to be able to use it to protect against actions by EU, US, Chinese, Taiwanese and Russian entities.

You might be able to use a Finnish patent to prevent a US manufacturer from importing infringing devices to Finland without paying for a licence, but it's much more important to prevent them from selling the devices in their home market.

Good for Nokia; they spent billions getting that patent portfolio, they're perfectly entitled to use it.

Microsoft spent billions getting a different patent portfolio, and they too are perfectly entitled to use it.

If you want to spend a few hundred million making a phone with a 'free' OS, you'll maybe now have to send five million to Seattle, five million to Finland, five million to Korea for Samsung's patents; so be it, it's a level playing field except for the crooks, and you just add it to the price of the phone.

And it may be that you'd rather send twelve million to Seattle, nothing directly to Finland, nothing to Korea, and use the Windows Mobile OS, for which your twelve million amongst other things buys you the right to refer patent cases straight to Microsoft's effectively unbounded legal resources.

And you probably ought to be spending a million or so lobbying for phones from companies who haven't paid the licensing fees to be forbidden from sale; they're explicitly cheating you.

I wonder if in these patent wars some one will bring up the fact that Nokia is a Finnish company, why is all this patent stuff happening in the US?

Because, while the European patent systems are pretty bad, the American system is far worse. It's all about laws and jurisprudence, which favours patent trolling a lot more in America, so that's the arena where the patent wars are fought. Elements of note: